


Folly

by twopunch



Category: Horus Heresy - Various Authors, Warhammer 40.000
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Canonical Character Death, M/M, Mild Gore, Wingfic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-02-07
Updated: 2012-02-07
Packaged: 2017-10-30 18:07:57
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,264
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/334596
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/twopunch/pseuds/twopunch
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sanguinius says no to Horus, which is unexpected, and unpleasant.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Folly

**Author's Note:**

> Prompt: Horus/Sanguinius, hubris

Horus stared down at Sanguinius's crumpled form. The torn wings hid the broken body beneath, a picture made more beautiful by how unnatural it looked. This was wrong. Voices whispered in his head, picking him apart from the inside, pulling forth the memories he had tried to lock away in his quest to remake the galaxy in his image.

Their father had taught them that there was no such thing as gods or spirits, but when Horus first met his brother, for a brief heretical moment, he had wondered. If this was not divinity, what was?

Sanguinius was perfect. Even his great, warp-touched wings, which should have been a gross mutancy, only complemented his beauty. He was the very image of the guardians that decorated so many fains, that featured in the stories and art of the old religions. His compassion was great; his wrath, more so. Horus thought he might love Sanguinius more than his father. An angel that would sit and fight by his side forever.

Smitten, Horus gifted Sanguinius with strings of glowing pearls, loops of finely wrought gold chains, chests overflowing with glowing rubies and shimmering opals. After battles, he stroked tangles from Sanguinius’s silk-soft hair and cleaned dirt and blood from Sanguinius’s wings. Away from their father and brothers and sons, they spent many long nights alone together, conversing. Horus was bold and decisive, but when he finally worked up the courage to ask Sanguinius, he understood what it meant to be human.

“Yes,” Sanguinius had said, smiling before he closed the distance. His wings arched and swept forward, enveloping them in a private cocoon. Sanguinius had never denied Horus anything before and Horus doubted he could say no to Sanguinius in turn. 

And yet.

“No,” Sanguinius said quietly when Horus asked, one last time. His voice was both exhausted and defiant. But he didn’t ask Horus in return, did not seek answers. Not even now.

Slick, oily power slid across Horus’s mind, burning and chilling as they sought footholds. Images came, sharp and vivid, of him and Sanguinius tangled together in that illogical garden on 33-36, the plants they had crushed underneath them in their passion leaving blue stains on skin. The time he had 'borrowed' Corax’s jump pack, grinning when Sanguinius shook his head in reprimand. He launched into the air after him nonetheless. On the Vengeful Spirit, feeding Sanguinius fresh grapes from the vineyards of Prospero, pushing his fingers gently past his brother’s willing lips and getting cut by the sharp fangs hidden behind them.

Signus Prime had been a mistake. If he had asked his brother to join him instead, surely it would not have come to this. If he had asked, surely Sanguinius would not have refused him now. 

He thought he heard a sibilant voice in his head chuckle, and he felt its ill-hidden mirth at the failure of his plans. Plans the voice had suggested.

“This was a waste,” Horus growled, too committed now to allow himself to feel regret or sorrow, to acknowledge doubt.

“Another of those that stand in your way is dead,” one or all of the voices responded reprovingly. “And now the false god will come to be slain. As we promised.”

Another memory. The two of them side by side, their legions behind them, as they slaughtered their way through hordes of vicious, multi-limbed xenos. Horus glanced at Sanguinius. The expression of righteous fury on his brother’s face was more glorious than the light cast by a thousand suns. Later, alone and freed from their armor, Horus pulled Sanguinius to him, heedless of caked blood and stinking ichor. They fell together, rolling on the dirt floor, shoving and biting at each other in their eagerness. Nails raked across backs. Teeth clashed and broke skin. The hard press of calloused hands between thighs. Horus bent down, took Sanguinius in his mouth and sucked. He watched Sanguinius throw back his head with a cry of pleasure, tasted Sanguinius’s arousal on his tongue. 

Puffs of dirt swirled in the wake of Sanguinius’s fluttering wings. Horus pulled away from his ministrations and sneezed. 

“Horus!” Sanguinius protested, reaching for him.

“Hold,” Horus said. Sanguinius did, leaning back and watching Horus with half-lidded eyes. Hiding a smile, Horus wiped his nose and sat back, then pulled the remains of his tunic over his head. “Come here.” Sanguinius rolled and crawled over to him, predatory and hungry, lips curling to a smirk as he glanced down at Horus’s lap.

Sanguinius rode Horus, wings beating and feathers flying into the air as he took his pleasure. The feathers swirled and turned pink. _Thrust_. Pink became the colour of heart’s blood. _Thrust_. Sodden feathers hit the ground wetly, leaving smeared marks like fingers dragging through ink. Grinning wounds split across Sanguinius's chest, pink as kiss-swollen, drooling mouths. Blood came out as a thin, watery trickle that turned thick and dark as Horus clawed and thrust into him.

“Blood,” a voice like broken glass clawed through his thoughts. “Blood,” it sighed. Horus shook his head to clear the perversion of his memories. He took a step forward, intending to check on his dying brother. To save him? To kill him? He wasn't certain. 

He had to be certain.

Horus knelt awkwardly, his new armour not intended for such a servile action. Sanguinius’s blood still dripped from the blades of his lightning claw, rich and bright as the deep red teardrop emblem on Sanguinius’s armour, so similar to the staring eye on Horus’s. Long hair that had been untouched by the violence of Horus’s attack, now lay soaking in the expanding pool of blood that leaked from the rents made to armour and body. Delicately, Horus ran one talon down the side of Sanguinius’s face, brushing the stray hairs away from the pained visage. Sanguinius changed his hair to suit his moods and today it was like finespun gold. A gold that shone with more light than the most ornately worked armour.

“Everything will be yours soon,” whispered the soft voice, a soothing caress that set fire to his blood. “You will have others.”

Sanguinius drew a rattling breath, so unlike any sound Horus had heard him make before. Not the excited release just before a battle is joined, nor the sharp gasp as Horus entered his body. Nothing like the amused huff when a Luna Wolf beat a Blood Angel, a lost duel that resulted in mutual winnings when they retired to Horus’s quarters. Nor was it the soft sigh as sweat and fluids cooled between them after they were spent. Sanguinius’s wings were drooping, losing their lustre with every difficult, stuttering rise and fall of his chest. Feathers dropped, heavy with blood and the vestiges of Sanguinius’s earlier fight. The pearls and silver bands were missing.

Horus didn’t want others. He would rule with this brother by his side, or he would rule alone.

“He could live.” The thick, bubbling voice, syllables stretched and chewed and escaping in gurgles. “Forever.”

“Decide,” one or all voices hissed.

Horus ignored them and leaned forward. Sanguinius’s eyes were closed, his lashes still against his cheeks. He could have been a sleeping angel carved from marble, and when Horus pressed his lips gently against Sanguinius’s, it was like kissing cold stone.

They could be warm again. There was time, he noted. Another shuddering tremble, another feather falling. It floated down and stuck to Horus’s nose. He shook it off. With Sanguinius by his side...

But it was too late. Horus stood, raising his mace, and turned to greet their father.

**Author's Note:**

> Notes: Not as pr0ny as it was supposed to be, sorry. /(-__-;)\


End file.
